Dr. BFRTZ. That is our impression, Senator Clark, there are researches being carried on at NIH, for example, and also in Philadelphia, to study the vascular flow, the blood supply to the brain. The better the blood supply to the brain in individuals who are integrated, the better the mentality of the individual, we think.

Senator CLARK. Now, are there pretty well established tests for determining mental alertness as age progresses?

Dr. BORTZ. Yes. This again is a relative matter. However, in a scientific query pro and con there are always areas that are unknown. Senator CLARK. I say this in somewhat the lighter vein. The median age of members of the U.S. Senate is 57 years of age. I am 57. Therefore, I speak with an impartial point of view. It would be very interesting to take some mental alertness tests to see if those over 57 measured up better, worse or about the same as those under 57. I expect, of course, I would not take the test because I am just 57.

In this connection you spoke of the nursing home, and I think it is a necessary tool in connection with our treatment of the aged. The nursing home, as you know, has been a matter of some controversy. My own view has been that a proprietary nursing home can be an enormously useful institution in the community. While there occasionally have been some scandals, efforts to impose on people, not giving adequate care and making a lot of money out of patients, by and large they have done a good job and with reasonable State standards of inspection, the proprietary nursing home can be an effective social institution. I wonder if you agree.

Dr. BORTZ. Senator Clark, I think this is one of the most important developments in the last couple of years, but you have a brilliant and attractive young woman to testify, Mrs. Baltz, who is president of the Nursing Homes Association.

Senator CLARK. She has already been in testifying before the Banking and Currency Committee asking for money to build more nursing

homes.

Dr. BORTZ. I suggest you give it to her.

Senator CLARK. We will have this transferred to the other record. One final comment and question, then, Doctor. You and I come from Pennsylvania and our philosophy has always been that it is up to the family to take care of the older people. But this is a real philosophical question in the United States today. There are wide areas in this country who do not believe in that philosophy. I happen to have some wide connections in the State of Louisiana, and I became involved in a friendly discussion with Senator Long of Louisiana on the subject the other day. They do not think the family should take care of the older people. They think this is the responsibility for the community, that you should not inhibit the growth and development of the younger generation by imposing on them this burden to take care of people who have made their contributions to the community and made their contribution to the State.

For example, in the State of Louisiana there is no means tests for public assistance. In our State there is. They think they are right. We think we are right.

Are you sure that we are right and that is a proper obligation of the children, to take care of their parents and grandparents?

Dr. BORTZ. Is the strength and vitality of the Nation ultimately resident in the strength and vitality of the citizen?

Senator CLARK. Surely.

Dr. BORTZ. OK. Then the stronger the vitality of the citizen and the family of the citizens and the more contributing they are to the social well-being and welfare

Senator CLARK. Correct.

Dr. BORTZ. The more they will take care of themselves.

In the last analysis what happens to an individual as he grows older does not depend on the Government, it depends on that individual. We can develop a philosophy that will encourage this individual to develop his own potentials as he grows older.

Senator CLARK. I could not agree with that more. What I am speaking of-and I do not want to detain the hearing any longer, because there are a number of other witnesses-but this question, I think we all agree it is up to the individual himself or herself, and there will come a time when they are unable to care for themselves, then there is this large school of thought to which I never belonged hitherto and I can tell from your testimony you do not, which says it is not up to the children and grandchildren to look out for them, it is up to the community resources.

Dr. BORTZ. But who is the community, Senator Clark, other than other families and other members? There is not such a visionary thing as a government as such. A government is people. And you get the strength from the people and if one family does not do it, another family must in the aggregate.

Senator CLARK. I would not be too sure. Do not forget social security and all of the proposed increases of social security to help meet this problem and take at least part of the burden off the children and grandchildren. The public school system, of course, is another in which everybody pays for school. All I am pointing out to you is that there seems to be quite an argument going on on this question, and 1 want to be perfectly sure that you are what might be called an oldfashioned conservative in the feeling that it is up to the family, the children and grandchildren to take care of the aging parent.

Dr. BORTZ. I am a very liberal individual. I have been interested in welfare all my life. I have heard of certain groups that have taken to themselves the prerogative of being interested in welfare. I have been doing welfare work all my life, for over 30 years.

Senator CLARK. Doctor, I was not criticizing you. I was trying to get your point of view on the record.

Senator MCNAMARA. I will put a tag on you again, Doctor. Thanks very much.

Dr. BORTZ. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF MARIE C. MCGUIRE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF SAN ANTONIO, TEX.

Senator MCNAMARA. The next witness represents the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials as well as the housing authority of the city of San Antonio, Tex.

We are very happy to have Senator Yarborough with us this morning, who has a great interest not only in the problems we are considering here today, but in all of the other problems that come before the Congress.

Senator Yarborough will introduce the witness.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Chairman, I am grateful for the generous remarks of the chairman.

I have been here and had the privilege of hearing Dr. Bortz's statement, and he almost persuaded me to quit my 16-hour workday and go back to fishing again.

I do not think the exigencies of Senate life will quite permit that until I reach that somewhat envious third cycle which he talked about. Mr. Chairman, it is my sincere pleasure this morning to present to this subcommittee a lady who has unselfishly dedicated herself to making better homes for American senior citizens. She has been doing this for a number of years. In fact, Mrs. Marie C. McGuire and her sister are both working toward this goal. Her identical twin sister, Mrs. Margaret C. Schweinhaut, is now serving her second term as member of the Maryland General Assembly.

Senator MCNAMARA. Glad to have both of the ladies here.

Senator YARBOROUGH. This lady I am presenting this morning, as you mention, is the executive director of the San Antonio Housing Authority and a director of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. And I might mention, Mr. Chairman, that she started her work with the housing authority in the 1930's, in that decade of idealism in American Government. In these positions she has worked personally with many elderly persons and has helped to improve the living standards of those in need.

Mr. Chairman, I have had the privilege of seeing her up here on forums in my home State for some 10 or 15 years.

Now, she has been a leader in this program for years and she has encouraged this type of study and fought to bring it about at a State level for a good many years. She has been working with the housing authority for 18 years, and particularly in the last few years has helped guide the pioneering work in her hometown of San Antonio, Tex., in the field of providing housing and recreation facilities for the aged. At this time San Antonio leads any city in the Southwest in service in this field. In Texas she is one of the leading citizens in the progress that has been made.

Because of her work elderly citizens have moved into thousands of San Antonio public housing units and in about 2 weeks from now they will move into 36 motel cottage units that will be open. As part of this study of the problem of the aged, it will be valuable to determine whether they would do better in the motel-type unit than in the conventional housing units of the past.

This lady is also the author of a book on this subject entitled "Housing for the Elderly." She, I might say, and her sister think alike in this field; both believe that elderly persons should become more active in politics and lend their weight and experience to campaigns of candidates that they believe in best. They are quite active in that respect, also.

I hope they will continue, but, Mr. Chairman, I can say that I want to give my vote right now to Senator Clark's proposal to take a mental test of all of us in the Senate. [Laughter.]

The exigencies of campaigning place a hard enough burden on a man's physical endurance, and I do not know if we had both mental and physical-we get a physical test every few years now.

Mrs. Schweinhaut recently introduced a bill which the Maryland Legislature speedily passed establishing a committee to consider prob

lems of Maryland's aged. She has been appointed by the Governor of Maryland as chairman of the Government Commission on Problems of Aging in the State of Maryland.

Mrs. Schweinhaut, would you stand up, please? She is an identical twin sister.

Mrs. SCHWEINHAUT. Don't confuse the committee too much.

I will

have to admit I am 5 minutes older. I want to say that before my sister says she is 5 minutes younger.

Thank you, Senator.

Senator MCNAMARA. Glad to hear from you.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Chairman, these two ladies have fine ideas of citizenship and also exhibit the mark of good citizens in their willingness and ability to translate their ideals and hopes and aims into definite, positive action that has actually done something for people.

It is with a great deal of pleasure that I present to this Special Committee of the Senate of the United States for Study of the Problems of the Aging Mrs. Marie C. McGuire, of San Antonio, Tex.

Senator MCNAMARA. Thank you, Senator.

I am certainly sure that the younger sister has been properly introduced. I see you have a prepared statement, and you may proceed in your own manner.

Mrs. MCGUIRE. Thank you, Senator Yarborough. I appreciate those gracious words, and the committee should also know that those of us working in this field in Texas know we have a real champion in Senator Yarborough, who has been a great assist in many hard struggles in which we have reached our goal.

I will not read the prepared statement, Senator; the time is getting late. Rather, I will summarize the chief points that the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials would like to place before the committee this morning.

Senator MCNAMARA. Your statement will be printed in the record in full at this point.

Mrs. MCGUIRE. Thank you.

(The prepared statement of Mrs. McGuire follows:)

STATEMENT OF MRS. MARIE C. MCGUIRE

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am Marie C. McGuire, a member of the board of governors of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. I am also the executive director of the San Antonio Housing Authority, operating a program of 5,154 apartments for low-income families, 15 percent of which are, or will shortly be, occupied by the elderly of low income.

The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials is a private, nonprofit professional association founded in 1933. Its membership comprises civic leaders and public officials interested in the improvement of public administrative practices in housing and urban renewal, and in the achievement of a healthful living environment for every American family. The members of our association are largely those who administer the low-rent public housing and urban renewal programs in communities throughout the United States. They are concerned with all the problems of planning, financing, building, and managing housing for low-income families and with slum clearance, redevelopment, housing rehabilitation, neighborhood conservation, and the enforcement of minimum housing standards.

Out of the work of our association in these fields we came to recognize some 15 years ago that the housing needs of the elderly were not being met and that their problems would be aggravated during the process of slum clearance and city rebuilding if they were not given special attention. Ten years before enact

ment of the 1956 Housing Act, which carried provisions for this country's first programs of Federal aid for housing for the elderly, the association began the collection and publication of data on the nature and extent of the need for a program of housing for the aged. Our reference resources are at the disposal of this subcommittee.

Based on what we have learned over this long period of concern with the housing problems of the elderly, we anticipate that private builders will take a gradually increasing interest in this market. But the builder can do only a part of the job; his interest is in the family of moderate income, the independent family with no major health problems.

We must also be concerned with the large number of elderly single persons and families that gradually lose their capacity for independent living. And we must be concerned with those families with insufficient income to rent or buy the houses that the private market can provide. It is our observation that nonprofit corporations initiated by church organizations, union groups, and such specialized groups as retired schoolteachers are going to take on more and more responsibility for meeting the housing needs of those whom private builders cannot serve, with the exception of the families of the lowest income. These latter families, we believe, will have to rely more and more on the public housing program.

Because of the nature of the work of the members of our association, we can speak with the greatest competence on the role of public housing in meeting the needs of the elderly. Before concentrating our testimony on public housing, however, we should like to call the attention of the subcommittee to a few observations we have made with reference to the role of the private builder and the nonprofit corporation in providing housing for the elderly.

Representatives of the private builders will undoubtedly bring to your attention any problems encountered in financing such housing, whether through Federal Housing Administration insured loans or otherwise. We think that you may want to devise some means for alerting the builder to problems he has not yet seen: make him aware of some of the special considerations that must go into the provision of such housing if he is not to find himself in trouble in later years or if he is not to bring trouble on communities and families that are equally unaware of the dangers ahead. If private builders do not plan the financing and management of the retirement villages they are sponsoring to serve not only the independent but the semi-independent and the wholly dependent elderly, trouble is bound to occur with 5 to 10 years or so of the opening of such a development. Just as suburban communities have run into trouble when they failed to provide for schools, parks, playgrounds, and shopping services for the young family, the builders of suburbs or developments for the aged will encounter serious problems if they do not arrange for the specialized social, health, and recreation needs of the elderly. Perhaps your subcommittee can devise a means of working with the builders who are becoming interested in housing for the elderly to assure that they avoid such pitfalls.

On the nonprofit front, the organizations that are taking the leadership here are, by and large, well aware of the various stages from independence to dependence through which most elderly people go. Groups of this kind are the ones that have had the longest experience in the field through the church homes and institutions that they have sponsored. They are well aware, in most instances, of the need for facilities for health, recreation, and education. They have a good deal to teach everyone about the whole subject of housing for the elderly. These groups are likely to be the major force in coping with the overall problem. But it has been our observation that many potential sponsors are frustrated by a wide variety of financing problems. Perhaps your subcommittee can be of real assistance to them in getting to the root of their troubles. One problem of which we believe you are already aware is the income tax status of these corporations. Apparently the problem has to do with the unwillingness of the Internal Revenue Service to give tax-exempt status to an organization of this kind until the housing is actually built and occupied.

Another potential area for study is the usefulness of a direct loan program. Our association is on record in favor of a program of this kind as proposed by Congressman Rains. We are at a loss to understand why there should be strenu ous objection to such loans in view of the precedents for this form of Federal aid in the GI home loan and college housing loan programs. In any case, there is a real field for study here. It is possible that direct loans should be reserved for families of certain income levels or for areas where normal financing sources are inoperative.